


i miss how simple

by alotofthingsdifferent



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:04:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4492899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alotofthingsdifferent/pseuds/alotofthingsdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>sometimes you're still mine</i><br/><i>between the lines</i><br/><i>of the sunday new york times</i><br/>~Matt Nathanson</p><p>It's late September, and Nick's leaving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i miss how simple

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](Http://alotofthingsdifferent.tumblr.com)!

_2014_

“We’ll make it work,” Nick says, and Brandon feels the sharp edge of Nick’s apartment key scrape against his skin as he presses it into his palm. 

There’s a gust of wind, and wet leaves fall from the trees lining the boulevard. One lands on Brandon’s arm, slapping against his skin, sticking there. It’s late September, and Nick’s leaving.

“I love you,” Brandon tells him, and Nick smiles Brandon’s favorite smile, the one that says everything.

Brandon stands with one foot in the street, watches the taxi’s tail lights until they turn the corner and disappear.

He wishes it felt more like a beginning and less like an end. 

**

“Seven-letter word for ‘covers up’,” Brandon says over his coffee mug, pencil eraser pressed to the corner of his mouth. Nick’s ankle is snug against his under the table, warm, and Nick leans over the paper that’s spread out between them. 

He snags the pencil from Brandon’s fingers and writes “enrobes” in 8-across before handing it back to him with a smile. The puzzle is a mixture of their handwriting, Brandon’s dark, messy scrawl and Nick’s neat block letters. It mimics their apartment, pieces of them both scattered about their space. 

Brandon watches Nick flip through the paper, the way his fingers drag over the ink when a headline catches his eye. The reminders of their Sunday morning ritual sit stacked near a bookshelf against the far wall of their apartment, leaning piles of earmarked editions of the New York Times. Sometimes Nick grabs one from the middle of the stack and they read it again, try to remember what they were doing that day or who got the most answers filled in on the crossword. (It’s almost always Nick, but Brandon doesn’t mind.)

“Hey,” Nick says quietly, and Brandon looks up from 10-down and meets his eyes. “I applied for a job.”

He’s not smiling.

It’s the only edition of the Sunday Times that Brandon’s thrown away in six months. 

**

“What’s this?” Nick asks when Brandon hands him a brightly-wrapped package early one morning. Nick’s still bleary-eyed with sleep, his hair sticking up on one side, but Brandon’s had the box in his top drawer for two weeks now. He can’t wait anymore.

It fits perfectly in the palm of Nick’s hand, and Brandon bounces on the balls of his feet, anxious. “Open it,” he says, and chews his lower lip while Nick tears into the paper.

He watches Nick’s profile while he opens the box, the way his jaw goes slack with realization, the way the corner of his mouth curves slowly upward, until he’s grinning and pushing up from the kitchen table, making his way to Brandon. 

Brandon laughs and lets Nick wrap him up in a tight hug, pepper kisses to his neck and along his jaw. “You’re crazy,” Nick says, and Brandon shrugs.

“About you, yeah,” he says, and holds Nick tighter.

Nick puts the shiny new key on his key ring and hires a moving company.

**

“Hey,” Nick says, knocking his knee against Brandon’s. They’re sprawled on the steps outside Brandon’s apartment, Nick leaned back on one elbow, a vanilla ice cream cone in his free hand.

“Hmm?” Brandon replies from where he’s licking his own cone, turning his head to meet Nick’s eyes. Nick smiles, bright and beautiful. Brandon lifts his hand to his forehead to shade his eyes from the sun.

“I love you.”

Brandon drops his ice cream in his lap, and Nick laughs, leaning in to help Brandon clean it up. Their hands are sticky, and Brandon’s legs are sticky, and none of it matters when Nick’s lips meet his. 

They lean against each other, shoulder to shoulder. Brandon watches his ruined ice cream melt against the hot cement and turns his face into Nick’s left. “You made me drop my treat.”

“You can share mine,” Nick says, and Brandon kisses his shoulder.

“I love you too,” Brandon says, he _finally_ says, and Nick’s smile is like the sun.

**

_2013_

“I like this one,” Brandon says, pointing to a photograph hanging from the line in Nick’s darkroom. 

It’s the two of them in Central Park the week before, Brandon goofing for the camera and Nick watching him with a fond smile on his face. Nick had set the timer and told Brandon to go, laughing when Brandon pulled him into the frame with him. 

There are pictures from the same day spread around the room -- Brandon leaning against a tree reading, his bare feet crossed at the ankles, Brandon looking over his shoulder and grinning at the camera (at Nick, really) as he walked down a winding path, Nick leaned against him, his lips to Brandon’s temple, Brandon’s eyes cast downward and his lips curved up just a little. 

But this is Brandon’s favorite. The way Nick’s looking at him in it makes his heart beat faster.

“I’ll frame it for you,” Nick tells him, and presses a kiss to Brandon’s neck before getting back to work.

Brandon puts it on his bedside table. It’s the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes every morning.

**

“These are really good,” Brandon says, and Andy nods in agreement. 

“Nick’s amazing,” Andy tells him as they flip through the photographs scattered over Andy’s desk. 

“Anyone who can make _you_ look this good is pretty talented,” Brandon teases, and Andy elbows him in the ribs. 

“You’d like him,” Andy says, laying back on his twin bed with his hand behind his head. “He’s your type.”

Brandon laughs, his cheeks going pink. “I don’t have a type.” 

Andy rolls his eyes and watches Brandon slip the photographs back into their envelope. “You really, really do.”

Brandon flips him off. 

Andy offers to introduce him to Nick anyway.

**

_2015_

Brandon pulls his scarf up over his face, hiding his cheeks and nose from the biting January wind that’s picked up since he left the coffee shop around the corner from his place. The scarf still smells faintly of Nick, and he keeps telling himself he’s going to get rid of it, or wash it, or cut it up into a million tiny pieces. 

He keeps telling himself.

It’s Sunday morning, a week into the new year, another Sunday morning without NIck. It’s been sixteen Sundays without Nick, and today, Brandon worked on his first New York Times crossword since late September. He didn’t finish, and the page looked all wrong without Nick’s letters filled in next to his.

He left the paper on the table and took his coffee to go.

“There’s a guy,” Andy told him earlier in the week. “He’s great. Really nice, very smart.”

Brandon appreciates the thought. He appreciates Andy’s friendship. “I’m not ready,” he said. “Maybe another time.”

It’s a new year. The wind is blowing cold, and Nick is gone. 

He trudges up the stairs to his apartment, shaking off the cold, and stops in his tracks when he reaches his door. His stomach drops to the floor, his coffee cup with it.

“What --”

“I’m sorry,” NIck’s saying, and he’s getting to his feet, and Brandon’s blood is rushing in his ears. “I didn’t try hard enough, I didn’t _fight_ , I --”

"Seven-letter word for ‘pardon’”, Brandon says, cutting him off, and Nick huffs out a laugh. His cheeks are flushed from the cold, and when he smiles, Brandon goes warm all over.

“Forgive,” Nick says, and when Brandon holds his hand out, Nick laces their fingers together.

“Welcome home,” Brandon whispers. 

The stack of papers in the apartment grows by one.


End file.
